This is a totally undisciplined film that attempts too much. It starts out with British Teddy Boy motorcycle thugs from the '60s (led by OLIVER REED) mocking rich American tourist (MACDONALD CAREY) and beating him up while some sort of rock song about leather plays on the soundtrack.
It goes on to explore the relationship between a weird sculptress (VIVECA LINDFORS) with a penchant for ugly art and a jaded scientist (ALEXANDER KNOX) who both loves her and hates her for what she is. And lets add right here that Miss Lindfors has never given a worse performance in a role which defies any normalcy. No wonder! She had nothing to grasp onto in portraying this woman, no clue at all as to the woman's unexplained motives except that she was a free thinker.
Then the plot shows us that the scientist is head of a nuclear project that experiments with small children in a most unusual way, rearing them in a cave-like dwelling where their only contact with human beings is through a large TV screen. The plot gets thicker when MACDONALD CAREY and Oliver Reed's sister (SHIRLEY ANNE FIELD) develop a romance despite her brother's incestuous objections and accidentally stumble upon the building where the weird experiments are going on.
It's all structured so poorly that you keep wondering in what direction the plot will wander next and none of the scientific explanations seem the least bit plausible.
Summing up: Extremely dated sci-fi directed by Joseph Losey is fairly well acted but the script is a jumbled mess.
It goes on to explore the relationship between a weird sculptress (VIVECA LINDFORS) with a penchant for ugly art and a jaded scientist (ALEXANDER KNOX) who both loves her and hates her for what she is. And lets add right here that Miss Lindfors has never given a worse performance in a role which defies any normalcy. No wonder! She had nothing to grasp onto in portraying this woman, no clue at all as to the woman's unexplained motives except that she was a free thinker.
Then the plot shows us that the scientist is head of a nuclear project that experiments with small children in a most unusual way, rearing them in a cave-like dwelling where their only contact with human beings is through a large TV screen. The plot gets thicker when MACDONALD CAREY and Oliver Reed's sister (SHIRLEY ANNE FIELD) develop a romance despite her brother's incestuous objections and accidentally stumble upon the building where the weird experiments are going on.
It's all structured so poorly that you keep wondering in what direction the plot will wander next and none of the scientific explanations seem the least bit plausible.
Summing up: Extremely dated sci-fi directed by Joseph Losey is fairly well acted but the script is a jumbled mess.